


forever my father

by hambamthankyoumaam (Random13245)



Series: The Selection AU [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda, The Selection Series - Kiera Cass
Genre: Changing Tenses, Flashbacks, Gen, Henry Laurens' A+ Parenting, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Minor Character Death, Reminiscing, Sympathy for the Devil, all the major events he can remember up until the present, its implied that he's abusive but it's a lot deeper than that ya know, its kinda a prequel to John's life, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 19:15:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10600449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random13245/pseuds/hambamthankyoumaam
Summary: You don't have to be so scared/You don't have to go tonight/'Cause we just need to hold on tight/For one hell of a ride/'Cause lost it all just now/To the nights that left you out/So we'll let this go somehow/But you're gonna be proud, so proudAnd I just needed you to pick me up/Like you did when we were younger/When the lightning and the thunder/Had me clinging to your heart/For someone to lift me up/When I'm down and I'm forgotten/You'll forever be my father/And I'll be saving tears in jars for this one, for this oneAnd how can I fit all these words/Into such a simple verse/It's the last time that I'll speak/So you listen to me, please[or: John's past][or: I'm still pop punk trash whoops][or: I still can't write in consistent tenses right now]





	

**Author's Note:**

> The song _Forever My Father_ was the main inspiration for this little backstory-flashback-reminiscing thing. I don't know, I wanted to tell John's backstory. Alex's is coming soon!
> 
> As you can probably tell my writing is all over the place lately and I can't seem to forcus on the main plot right now. I hope these little one shot backstories and fillers will tide you all over until my mind and writing is back on track.

His first memories start at age five.

He was five when his sister was born, a loud, screaming bundle of terror. A new experience in his life, she was at the time his only sibling. He remembers feeling disgusted by the small baby, who screamed and spit up and burped, but once she was old enough to walk, they were inseparable. Over the course of the next three years, he had two more, but stayed closest to his sister.

* * *

He was six when his father taught him how to ride a bike. He remembers feeling almost normal, then, not the heir to a throne, and not as if a king was carrying the bike. He remembers falling, scraping a knee. One of his most… normal childhood memories, he realizes. It was an average everyday kid-thing to get scraped knees and calloused hands from the hot metal playgrounds. He could only remember one time he'd ever scraped his knees, and never once had he been to a playground.

He remembers his father’s smile- he's not sure he's even seen it since, so he clings to this one picturesque moment- and the way he giggled as he felt the air push back his hair.

* * *

He was eight when his mother died. He remembers the funeral, the way the public mourned with the family, for their queen was gone. He remembers feeling enraged, first at his mother. For leaving him, their family, the country. Then, at the public. They had no right to mourn and hurt so much over _his_ mother. He got past the anger eventually, but it seemed like his father never did.

* * *

He was nine when he could first remember his father having an outburst. He was playing with Martha, a tender four years of age at the time, and his father was upset that he was goofing off.

His father had yanked on his arm. Rough, with a tight vice of a grip. He remembers crying out, remembers Martha jumping to attention, wanting to help, but she could hardly reach. Remembers the icy stare his father gave him, and the way he rolled over and took the punishment as it came.

He wasn't sure, then, if his siblings ever were on the receiving end of their father’s lingering anger and frustration. He'd hoped not, he'd hoped his father took all of it out on him and didn't dole it out evenly.

* * *

He was eleven- his eleventh birthday, in fact- when he'd witnessed his father break down for the first time. The festivities were over, his birthday wasn't yet a national celebration; that was reserved for his father until he succeeded the crown. It had been a long day, nonetheless. The four children were energetic and maybe a bit noisy, in retrospect he supposes this didn't help. The halls were still decorated- the same maids and butlers who had spent hours putting them up late at night last night would spend hours taking them down later tonight.

His father had gone to his room- empty as it was. He wanted to see his father, he doesn't remember why, but he remembers feeling so determined to do so. He creaked open the door to the master suite, were his father stayed. It was technically his father’s private area, but this wouldn't be the first time one of the children entered. It was the last, however.

He found his father crumpled on the floor, of all places, clinging to a picture of his mother.

“Eleanor…” his father muttered to the picture, as if she would leap out of the photo and comfort him. His father didn't seem to notice him standing in the doorway, the door only slightly ajar. He watched for a few more moments, the way one might watch a car accident for a second too long, but you cannot take your eyes of it.

“He looks like you, Eleanor.” A pause, a sniffle. “It hurts.”

* * *

He was thirteen when he began more seriously training to be the king. He'd been preparing his whole life- little etiquette lessons or civics lectures here and there- but now it was serious. He was less than three years away from his coming of age, sixteen, and he'd have to take a wife and the crown. The ideas went hand-in-hand for him; a wife and a crown. He'd never thought to separate them, having a wife seemed as much fact as inheriting the crown.

Somewhere, deep inside, he knew he wasn't truly interested in having a wife. He knew his indifference to the idea was… abnormal. But he paid it no mind.

* * *

He was fifteen when he had his first knowing crush. His crush was rugged and handsome and a Two, hailing from a well respected family.

He doesn't remember the boy’s name. He was a boy his age, whom he'd met at one of the many celebrations hosted in the castle and attended by the upper class. The crush faded, however, as he hardly ever saw the boy. But it was there, nonetheless. He knew then just how far his indifference towards the idea of having a wife went.

* * *

He was sixteen when he was considered to have come of age, a grown adult now. Due to the untimely (he hated that word, hated how people used it to describe his mother, she was never too late or too early to any event) (he hated how the word made her death seem inconvenient) death of Queen Eleanor, his coming of age was pushed back by a year, in an effort to speed up the process to finding a new princess. His father had come of age at seventeen, and took a wife by eighteen. The hopes would be that he himself would have a wife by seventeen, slightly younger, so they'd both hopefully live longer.

* * *

He was sixteen, seven months, and 2 days when the Selection was announced.


End file.
